


Zigzagging Through The Night

by olderbynow



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Alcohol, Friendship, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:03:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7244221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olderbynow/pseuds/olderbynow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Mac laughs, spilling some of her drink on the carpet. “So he no longer finds you irresistible? I’ll have to draw his blood, develop a vaccine. I might even get a Nobel Prize for that.”</i>
</p>
<p>Set after 302, with references to both 301 and 302.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zigzagging Through The Night

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider this my “Sorry I’m late to the fandom party, is there any of the good liquor left?” style introduction.
> 
> ~~Please also consider it a warm up exercise as I try to get back into the swing of writing fanfiction.~~

Mac pours a healthy gin and tonic for herself and another - slightly less stiff - for her friend.

Phryne’s eyes narrow as she accepts the proffered glass. “Are you suggesting that I can’t hold my liquor?” she asks, voice just slurred enough to make the question completely ridiculous.

“Not at all,” Mac insists. “I am suggesting that I don’t want you drunk enough to start moaning about how there are no suitable men for you to seduce left in Melbourne.”

Phryne pulls a face, conceding the point. She _was_ just on the verge of a tirade. But, it’s true: “There aren’t any. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.” The admission slips out - courtesy of the four cocktails already in her system - that perhaps the problem is with her, not the selection of men, suitable or otherwise.

Mac grins, reaches up from where she’s seated on the floor as if to steal the glass from Phryne’s hand. “Alright, that’s it. You’ve clearly had enough.”

“But I haven’t had enough, Mac. That’s exactly the problem,” Phryne says petulantly, hugging the glass protectively close to her chest and leaning back in her armchair, before a smile breaks out across her face and she carries on dramatically. “I’m at danger of suffering from that dreaded wandering womb you once warned me about.”

“Surely it’s not as bad as that.”

“It’s pretty damn close.” She looks for a moment as if she’s about to elaborate, but then clearly changes her mind and swallows her drink in one instead.

Mac downs her own in solidarity and pours them two more. “What about that Captain What’s-His-Name, the pilot?” she asks, handing over a haphazardly mixed drink and wondering if that’s a question she’s going to regret. There’s a lot of potential for moaning down that conversational path and while she does want to be a supportive friend, there _are_ limits.

Phryne sighs in frustration, deposits her drink on the table. “There was that, I suppose.”

“But?” Mac prompts.

“It’s complicated,” Phryne insists, clearly determined not to explain further.

Mac can’t really say that she minds, except for the fact that her friend is obviously bothered by _something_. And Mac has a sneaking suspicion she knows what that something is. “I suppose there’s always the inspector,” she suggests innocently, pretending to be supremely interested in the ice floating in her drink.

Phryne is on the defensive immediately, subtle as nothing. “What about him?”

“I’m no expert, obviously, but surely he’d fall under the heading of ‘suitable’?”

“Suitable for what, exactly?”

Mac snorts. “For whatever it is you normally do. I’ve never asked for details, and I’m not about to start.” Perish the thought. When Phryne continues to insist on looking mystified she sighs and elaborates anyway. “Take him to bed, have your wicked way with him. Whatever--you know--you usually do with them.” She waves a dismissive, potentially suggestive, hand.

“You think I haven’t tried?”

It’s only the trace of genuine disappointment lurking beneath general frustration that keeps the smirk off Mac’s face at her petulant tone. “Clearly you haven’t tried hard enough.”

“Do you know,” Phryne says, looking up from her nail trying to claw its way through the fabric of the armchair. “I think the problem is I’ve tried _too_ hard.”

“Whereas you should’ve sat around waiting for him to seduce you?” Mac asks incredulously. Surely not.

“No!” Phryne sounds disgusted by the suggestion, which is a relief, at least. “I believe he might have become inoculated over time.”

Mac laughs, spilling some of her drink on the carpet. “So he no longer finds you irresistible? I’ll have to draw his blood, develop a vaccine. I might even get a Nobel Prize for that.”

Phryne pulls an unamused face. “Hilarious.”

“Not sure if it’d be for Medicine or Peace, of course,” Mac carries on smugly.

“Right, that’s it.” Phryne leans forward and grabs for the bottle of gin. “I’m cutting you off.”

Mac, who knows better, lets her.

Phryne eyes the empty bottle in her hand and then tilts her head to look beyond it at Mac. “It’d obviously be the Peace Prize.”

Mac grins, then nods her head in the direction of the door to bring Mr. Butler to Phryne’s attention.

“Pardon me, ladies. Inspector Robinson is here.”

Jack appears next to him, surveying the scene with an expression much less blank than Mr. Butler’s. If Mac were the sort to take offense easily she’d probably take some at how he seems ever so slightly less than thrilled to find her there.

“Jack,” Phryne exclaims, trying to both sound delighted at his sudden appearance - but not too delighted, of course - and throw a warning glare at Mac at the same time. If she had been sober she would definitely have managed it, but as it is the wires may have gotten slightly crossed.

“I’m afraid you’re too late, Inspector,” Mac tells him, indicating the empty bottle Phryne is still holding.

Jack smiles at both of them, wordlessly crossing the room and returning seconds later carrying a decanter of whiskey and a clean glass.

“What a clever man,” Mac says, her words aimed pointedly at Phryne.

“A truly unusual specimen,” she agrees, equally tongue-in-cheek.

He looks between them, eyebrows raised, then at the mess they’ve made on the small table between them.

Mac is pretty certain he’s trying to make up his mind if he should stay or not. “Sit down, Inspector,” she tells him. “I have a favour to ask you.”

“Mac,” Phryne chastises, not seriously enough to be taken, well, seriously.

He walks carefully, and ever so slowly, between the table and Phryne and seats himself in the empty armchair Mac abandoned two rounds of gin and tonic ago. When he holds up the decanter of whiskey to offer them a glass they both salute him with their near-filled ones. “A favour, Doctor MacMillan? I’m almost afraid to ask.”

She smiles, not at all soothingly. “Oh, I just want a bit of your blood. For science.”

“You’ll have to excuse her, Jack. She’s slightly beyond inebriated.”

“Unlike you, I’m sure, Miss Fisher,” he replies dryly, much to Mac’s delight.

“Oh, she’s more than slightly beyond,” Mac offers and even from her angle she can see his lips curl upward, his eyes hanging on Phryne just a little too long and a little too intensely for friendship.

Inoculated, indeed.

“So much for my accolades,” Mac sighs, loud enough for them both to hear.

Jack looks at her, bemused, but has apparently decided that trying to catch up with their conversation isn’t worth the effort. Phryne, however, gives her an inquisitive look and then turns her head to look at Jack just as searchingly, but with eyes that are somehow softer. Mac is tempted to call them ‘girlier’, but this _is_ still Phryne, and so instead what she’s left with is ‘This is what Phryne Fisher looks like in love’.

It’s not a surprise, really. (It’s not even _news_ , really.) She can’t remember Phryne ever spending this much time with any man she wasn’t related to, it seems inevitable that feelings should eventually have come into it.

What’s surprising is that Phryne Fisher, who never shied away from doing whatever - or whomever - the hell she wanted, is just sitting there sipping her drink waiting for a man to, if not seduce her, then certainly make a move of some sort.

Patience is not something that comes naturally to her, and Mac isn’t entirely sure it suits her.

If nothing else, it’s a bloody waste of time.

“You’ll have to hurry up, Inspector. You’re very far behind,” Mac tells him, pointing at the drink in his hand.

“Oh, I gave up on keeping up a long time ago,” he replies easily. Mac suspects he’s talking about more than just alcohol.

“Jack can’t really hold his liquor,” Phryne says teasingly and he throws her a look that probably would’ve been scolding if he hadn’t also been smiling, some pavlovian response to her smile.

Mac nods. She remembers _that_ rant. It was, after all, the rant that launched a thousand rants. How Jack had looked too deep into her father’s nerve tonic (side rant on her father thrown in for good measure, of course) and given her a rather larger piece of his mind than perhaps any of them intended.

_Parade of men_.

Except the parade had thinned out considerably of late, and Phryne latched onto that fact as an easy way to get out of dealing with why she was so bothered by the fact that _Jack Robinson_ was the one bringing it up.

Mac still isn’t sure, even now, if Phryne read anything into the fact that he has apparently been keeping score or she dismissed that as basic detectiving.

If she did, it was probably a mistake.

“I’d still put in the effort, if I were you,” Mac tells him, realising that maybe the hint wasn’t as subtle as she intended when he glances at Phryne - too busy glaring at Mac to notice - before meeting her eye and nodding.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jack says, taking a sip of his drink so small he can probably barely taste it.

“You do that.” Mac pours her own drink down her throat to show him how it’s done and gets to her feet. “I believe I hear my bed calling for me.”

Phryne looks momentarily startled by the sudden activity, but also like she hears the call of a bed of her own - not just calling out her own name.

“I hope you’re not leaving on my account,” Jack says, and Mac’s impressed by how he actually manages to sound sincere.

“Oh, don’t you worry, Inspector,” she assures him. “I don’t do anything on account of a man.”

She smiles her farewell to Phryne. “We can always go to Sydney, you know. I heard some students talking about a surf carnival there. Apparently there’ll be a parade.”

Phryne laughs, eyebrows raised in approval. Next to her Mac can see the tips of Jack Robinson’s ears turning red.

In the hallway Mac stops to put on her hat and coat, doesn’t mean to linger but it still takes long enough that she hears the beginning of the conversation that picks up in the parlour.

“So what _are_ you doing here at this hour, Inspector?” Mac can’t see Phryne’s face but judging from her tone she’s fairly certain eyelashes and lipstick are being put to good use. Never let it be said that Phryne Fisher gives up without a fight, even if she’s not quite sure what she’s fighting to achieve.

“I felt like a nightcap and somehow I’ve run out of whiskey at home.” As excuses to show up uninvited this late in the evening go, it’s pretty flimsy.

“Well, there’s always a nightcap waiting for you here,” Phryne tells him, her voice so full of promise that Mac all but runs out the door.

*v*v*

She meets Phryne for lunch three days later - hangover at a safe distance - and eyes her abdomen suggestively as they sit down. “Any wandering going on?”

Phryne rolls her eyes. “I’ll hold him down while you get the blood. That Nobel Prize is yours for the taking.”

Mac laughs sympathetically. “Sydney it is, then.”

Phryne nods without enthusiasm.

Perhaps not such a clever man after all.


End file.
